This document describes results from the OHI 2017 global assessment.
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Overview of global scores
This section describes global patterns in index and goal scores.
Map of index scores
Map png files can be downloaded here.
(Maps of goal scores are described below)
Distribution of scores
The median index score was 67.855. The highest score was 95 for Macquarie Island, and the lowest score was 42 for Ivory Coast.
The following histogram describes the distribution of overall index scores:

The regions with index scores of 80 or greater are:
| South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands |
91.98 |
| Crozet Islands |
88.08 |
| Howland Island and Baker Island |
87.69 |
| Heard and McDonald Islands |
87.35 |
| Kerguelen Islands |
87.32 |
| Jarvis Island |
83.90 |
| Macquarie Island |
83.82 |
| Northern Saint-Martin |
83.20 |
| Phoenix Islands (Kiribati) |
82.74 |
| Christmas Island |
82.70 |
| Palmyra Atoll |
82.30 |
| New Caledonia |
81.80 |
| Germany |
81.60 |
| Aruba |
80.67 |
| Cocos Islands |
80.47 |
| Norfolk Island |
80.37 |
| Madeira |
80.36 |
| Antigua and Barbuda |
80.07 |
The regions with index scores of 50 or less are:
| Senegal |
49.89 |
| Republique du Congo |
49.48 |
| Guinea Bissau |
48.88 |
| Bosnia and Herzegovina |
48.82 |
| Lebanon |
48.74 |
| Eritrea |
48.48 |
| Nicaragua |
47.79 |
| Guinea |
46.79 |
| Democratic Republic of the Congo |
46.31 |
| Sierra Leone |
46.10 |
| Libya |
43.55 |
| Ivory Coast |
41.83 |
This interactive table describes the index and goal scores for the regions in 2017 (and here’s a link to a color coded table, and a csv file can also be downloaded).
Change over time
A color-coded table of 6 year trends is available here (and a csv file).
These values are calculated using a linear model of scores for each region/goal over the past 6 years. Positive values indicate potentially increasing scores during the past 6 years and negative values indicate potentially decreasing scores.
NOTE: Currently, these data include the livelihoods and economies goal but this trends should probably be calculated without this goal.
Trends of regional index scores
The global average decreased by 0.14 points per year, although this is may not be statistically significant. There was a good deal of variation in trend among regions.
(Maps of goal scores are described below)
The following histogram describes the distribution of trend (e.g., change in score per year) in index scores:

The 10 regions with the largest increases in index scores are:
| Samoa |
1.86 |
| South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands |
1.67 |
| Myanmar |
1.65 |
| Pitcairn |
1.61 |
| Georgia |
1.49 |
| Tonga |
1.47 |
| Vanuatu |
1.41 |
| Qatar |
1.30 |
| Philippines |
1.26 |
| Yemen |
1.22 |
The 10 regions with the largest decreases in index scores are:
| 211 |
Ukraine |
-2.00 |
| 212 |
Bonaire |
-2.01 |
| 213 |
Saudi Arabia |
-2.03 |
| 214 |
Sint Eustatius |
-2.05 |
| 215 |
Saba |
-2.08 |
| 216 |
Sint Maarten |
-2.30 |
| 217 |
Mayotte |
-2.46 |
| 218 |
Equatorial Guinea |
-2.69 |
| 219 |
Estonia |
-3.04 |
| 220 |
Eritrea |
-3.99 |
Exploring change over time of goals
The following table provides the global scores (eez area weighted average of region scores) for the Index and goals/subgoals.
(NOTE: Livelihood and economy goals are not included here)
| Index |
70.63 |
71.09 |
70.97 |
70.59 |
69.85 |
69.97 |
| Artisanal opportunities |
76.87 |
77.20 |
77.46 |
77.56 |
77.63 |
77.71 |
| Species condition (subgoal) |
89.73 |
89.74 |
89.77 |
89.78 |
89.85 |
89.86 |
| Biodiversity |
89.96 |
90.27 |
90.11 |
90.27 |
90.41 |
90.38 |
| Habitat (subgoal) |
90.19 |
90.80 |
90.45 |
90.75 |
90.96 |
90.90 |
| Coastal protection |
87.88 |
87.73 |
87.71 |
87.64 |
87.32 |
86.61 |
| Carbon storage |
79.19 |
79.17 |
79.18 |
79.18 |
79.22 |
79.21 |
| Clean water |
74.19 |
73.73 |
73.65 |
73.57 |
73.54 |
73.54 |
| Fisheries (subgoal) |
52.43 |
52.83 |
52.86 |
51.37 |
50.59 |
50.84 |
| Food provision |
52.26 |
52.73 |
52.70 |
51.31 |
50.61 |
51.54 |
| Mariculture (subgoal) |
26.21 |
27.63 |
28.36 |
28.51 |
28.80 |
27.64 |
| Iconic species (subgoal) |
66.25 |
67.44 |
67.45 |
67.81 |
66.60 |
66.27 |
| Sense of place |
62.08 |
62.66 |
62.83 |
63.00 |
62.58 |
62.41 |
| Lasting special places (subgoal) |
57.92 |
57.87 |
58.20 |
58.19 |
58.57 |
58.56 |
| Natural products |
50.77 |
50.93 |
51.02 |
48.52 |
45.48 |
44.73 |
| Tourism & recreation |
52.55 |
52.25 |
50.71 |
50.24 |
46.46 |
47.48 |
The following is a very preliminary analysis of how the global scores changed over time. Global index scores decreased by an average 0.19 points per year (although, not significant with this rough analysis), with 138 regions having decreasing trends and 82 having increasing trends.
Declining scores
- Natural products declined by about 1.4 points per year on average (p = 0.010, 84 regions with decreasing trend and 50 with increasing). However, there is a lot of variation trends for this goal (i.e., large standard deviation), indicating that some regions have had relatively large increases.
- Tourism and recreation declined by about 1.2 points per year on average (p = 0.008, 133 regions with decreasing trend and 52 with increasing). However, this goal had a large amount of variation in trend results.
- Fisheries declined by about 0.5 points per year on average, which is in contrast to the increases we observed in previous years (0.03, 118 regions with decreasing trend and 102 with increasing trend)
- Coastal protection declined by 0.22 points per year on average (p = 0.02, 107 regions with decreasing trend and 36 with increasing). However, there is a fairly large amount of variation suggesting a few regions may be driving this trend, due to seaice loss.
- Clean waters declined by 0.11 points per year on average (p = 0.04, 123 regions with decreasing trend and 96 with increasing)
Improving scores
- Lasting special places scores increased by an average of 0.15 points per year (p = 0.005, 78 regions with increasing trend and 59 with decreasing)
- Artisanal opportunities scores increased by just over 0.16 points per year (p = 0.004, 178 regions with increasing trend and 35 with decreasing)
- Species condition scores improved by a small, but statistically signficant, 0.03 points per year (p=0.002, 125 regions with increasing trend and 94 with decreasing)
| Natural products |
-1.40 |
0.0096 |
50 |
84 |
-2.14 |
7.48 |
| Tourism & recreation |
-1.23 |
0.0077 |
52 |
133 |
-0.84 |
2.77 |
| Fisheries (subgoal) |
-0.46 |
0.0316 |
103 |
117 |
-0.24 |
1.45 |
| Food provision |
-0.32 |
0.1095 |
105 |
115 |
-0.24 |
1.48 |
| Coastal protection |
-0.22 |
0.0213 |
36 |
107 |
-0.40 |
2.43 |
| Index |
-0.21 |
0.0690 |
82 |
138 |
-0.23 |
0.81 |
| Clean water |
-0.11 |
0.0385 |
96 |
123 |
-0.09 |
0.97 |
| Iconic species (subgoal) |
-0.06 |
0.7587 |
89 |
131 |
-0.04 |
0.43 |
| Carbon storage |
0.01 |
0.1304 |
48 |
80 |
-0.01 |
0.09 |
| Species condition (subgoal) |
0.03 |
0.0020 |
127 |
92 |
0.01 |
0.08 |
| Sense of place |
0.05 |
0.6173 |
91 |
125 |
0.06 |
0.84 |
| Biodiversity |
0.08 |
0.0362 |
116 |
103 |
-0.01 |
0.44 |
| Livelihoods |
0.09 |
0.1411 |
72 |
78 |
-0.08 |
1.46 |
| Habitat (subgoal) |
0.12 |
0.0666 |
86 |
96 |
-0.02 |
0.88 |
| Lasting special places (subgoal) |
0.15 |
0.0052 |
59 |
78 |
0.15 |
1.65 |
| Artisanal opportunities |
0.16 |
0.0043 |
178 |
35 |
0.19 |
0.39 |
| Mariculture (subgoal) |
0.31 |
0.1916 |
51 |
52 |
0.14 |
1.51 |
| Livelihoods & economies |
0.51 |
0.1558 |
133 |
45 |
0.32 |
1.26 |
| Economies |
0.92 |
0.1566 |
118 |
21 |
0.72 |
1.68 |
Comparing assessment years
The following is a comparison of the global status scores generated for the 2016 scenario by this year’s assessment vs. last year’s assessment.
If the models and source data remains the same, these scores should be exactly the same. Differences indicate changes in methods or source data.
These changes do not reflect changes in actual system health!
Global averages
We made very few changes to goals, consequently the changes in scores for the 2016 scenario were not that large from the 2016 to 2017 assessment.
The largest changes were for NP (-4.18) and MAR (-4.39). The change in mariculture reflects changes to source data, and maybe a change to the reference point. The change for NP probably mainly reflects a correction to the code so that fish oil is included in the calculations.
Changes in SPP (-2.41), FIS (-2.67), TR (-2.41) were also observed. For SPP this reflects the newest data (used for all scenario years) and for TR the newest sustainability data is used for all scenario years (unfortunately, previous years of data are not compatible due to changes in their methods). FIS had many changes (updated saup data, 4 additional years of data, updates to RAM, gapfilling RAM data, better identification of RAM regions).
Other regions changed by less than 2 points.
| Artisanal opportunities |
73.77 |
73.63 |
0.14 |
| Species condition (subgoal) |
90.37 |
92.78 |
-2.41 |
| Biodiversity |
89.36 |
90.50 |
-1.14 |
| Habitat (subgoal) |
88.36 |
88.21 |
0.15 |
| Coastal protection |
85.29 |
85.29 |
0.00 |
| Carbon storage |
78.42 |
78.42 |
0.00 |
| Clean water |
73.45 |
73.45 |
0.00 |
| Economies |
87.65 |
87.65 |
0.00 |
| Livelihoods & economies |
82.46 |
82.46 |
0.00 |
| Livelihoods |
77.28 |
77.28 |
0.00 |
| Fisheries (subgoal) |
48.05 |
50.72 |
-2.67 |
| Food provision |
48.15 |
50.67 |
-2.52 |
| Mariculture (subgoal) |
26.49 |
30.88 |
-4.39 |
| Iconic species (subgoal) |
62.13 |
62.13 |
0.00 |
| Sense of place |
59.43 |
59.27 |
0.16 |
| Lasting special places (subgoal) |
56.73 |
56.41 |
0.32 |
| Natural products |
42.20 |
46.38 |
-4.18 |
| Tourism & recreation |
45.60 |
48.01 |
-2.41 |
Regional data
This color-coded table compares how the 2016 scenario index scores for each region/goal changed from the 2016 to 2017 assessment.
Because these are index scores, changes reflect updates to pressure and resilience scores as well as status.
The following interactive plot provides an overview of how the 2016 scenario scores changed between the 2016 and 2017 assessment for all goals and dimensions.
Additional checks
Plot years of data for each data layer….
Generate flower plots using new function…
Comparing trend and average index scores
To obtain a more complete picture of which regions are doing well and which are doing poorly we compared the average index scores (averaged over 2012 to 2017) and the trends for each region.
Of most concern are regions that have poor scores and declining trends.
The following is an interactive plot (region names are visible when hovering over the points) showing the relationship between average index scores and trend. The horizontal line represents the 0 trend and the vertical line is the average of the average index scores.